I was a big baseball fan when I was a kid. Then the MLB strike happened and I recognized it as rich people and really rich people fighting over more money than I would likely ever see. Took me a long time to go back to another game.

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, the owners offered a nine per cent increase in the salary cap. That sounds pretty generous. On the other hand, if that's their offer, how much more could they afford to pay?

bingethinker:Representative of the unwashed masses: I know the players deserve to get paid but they are trying for way too much at one time. I hope the strike doesn't go long.

/Rider fan

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, the owners offered a nine per cent increase in the salary cap. That sounds pretty generous. On the other hand, if that's their offer, how much more could they afford to pay?

There's definitely a lot more money in the league now but on the other hand many of the teams were making modest profits if any real ones at all. I think they could come up a bit more but the players have to let the teams make money too.

Hopefully it gets settled soon because losing any games will look bad for the league.

ArkAngel: ....rich people and really rich people fighting over more money than I would likely ever see....

Well, that is certainly not the case in the CFL. The owners are rich, yes, but the players are most certainly not. Note the salary cap for an entire CFL team is around $5 million. For 42 guys. One good NFL running back makes more than that. After a team pays its quarterbacks, running backs and best receivers a couple of hundred thou each, the remaining funds ensure that there are plenty of players toiling in the CFL for less money than they could make as a cop, firefighter or teacher... I certainly sympathize with them...

Representative of the unwashed masses:iron_city_ap: I thought that $5m had to have been a cap increase, not total. What do you guys pay to get into a game up there? $5? Those players are getting shafted from the sound of it.

The economics are totally different. Minimum salary is currently $45k the highest paid qb's are between $400-500k.

The new TV deal is about $43 million a year, for all 9 teams together. its hard to be against the players but nobody gets rich because of the CFL.

The money from the TV deal almost covers the salary cap all by itself. Figure an average ticket price of $40 and an average attendance of 27k/game means about $19m in ticket revenue. I assume teams also get parking and concession revenue. Once everybody and all the bills are paid, I can see how owners aren't bringing home much, especially compared to what we have here.

I just always assumed the CFL was a bigger business than it actually is.

Ticket revenue would be a little less. In the range of 24k average when you count teams in the east that don't draw as well but you're on the right track. honestly one of the reasons I like the CFL so much is that players aren't millionaire primadonnas.

cnocnanrionnag:Well, that is certainly not the case in the CFL. The owners are rich, yes, but the players are most certainly not. Note the salary cap for an entire CFL team is around $5 million. For 42 guys. One good NFL running back makes more than that. After a team pays its quarterbacks, running backs and best receivers a couple of hundred thou each, the remaining funds ensure that there are plenty of players toiling in the CFL for less money than they could make as a cop, firefighter or teacher... I certainly sympathize with them...

This.

Many CFL players get second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet. Football does not really pay the bills. It's more of a pro-am league.

Sad that it's apparently going to happen. But as others have said here, this isn't the NFL with greedy players going against even greedier owners. At least two CFL teams have gone bankrupt in the past twenty years. The owner of the BC Lions bought the Toronto Argonauts (owning both clubs) just to keep them from folding several years ago. I have to side with the owners.

That said, I'm surprised Americans haven't bought up all the franchises yet. With Steve Ballmer dumb enough to pay $2B for the LA Clippers, you'd think some of our egotistical sports nuts would be lining up to drop $50M CDN on a franchise toy.

mactheknife:Sad that it's apparently going to happen. But as others have said here, this isn't the NFL with greedy players going against even greedier owners. At least two CFL teams have gone bankrupt in the past twenty years. The owner of the BC Lions bought the Toronto Argonauts (owning both clubs) just to keep them from folding several years ago. I have to side with the owners.

That said, I'm surprised Americans haven't bought up all the franchises yet. With Steve Ballmer dumb enough to pay $2B for the LA Clippers, you'd think some of our egotistical sports nuts would be lining up to drop $50M CDN on a franchise toy.

Ishkur:cnocnanrionnag: Well, that is certainly not the case in the CFL. The owners are rich, yes, but the players are most certainly not. Note the salary cap for an entire CFL team is around $5 million. For 42 guys. One good NFL running back makes more than that. After a team pays its quarterbacks, running backs and best receivers a couple of hundred thou each, the remaining funds ensure that there are plenty of players toiling in the CFL for less money than they could make as a cop, firefighter or teacher... I certainly sympathize with them...

This.

Many CFL players get second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet. Football does not really pay the bills. It's more of a pro-am league.

Yup. I worked with Patrick Kabongo at a halfway house for teens one summer.

Gizmo Williams worked as a courier; my mother's office often got deliveries from him.

Kurohone:Ishkur: cnocnanrionnag: Well, that is certainly not the case in the CFL. The owners are rich, yes, but the players are most certainly not. Note the salary cap for an entire CFL team is around $5 million. For 42 guys. One good NFL running back makes more than that. After a team pays its quarterbacks, running backs and best receivers a couple of hundred thou each, the remaining funds ensure that there are plenty of players toiling in the CFL for less money than they could make as a cop, firefighter or teacher... I certainly sympathize with them...

This.

Many CFL players get second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet. Football does not really pay the bills. It's more of a pro-am league.

Yup. I worked with Patrick Kabongo at a halfway house for teens one summer.

Gizmo Williams worked as a courier; my mother's office often got deliveries from him.

It's "pro-am" because guys have time off during the offseason, and it isn't "millions" of dollars.... but, even the lowest salary is certainly enough to "live on", at least for a single person:

"The CFL has a $4.4 million salary cap in 2013 and a roster size of 53 players resulting in a(average) salary of $83,018."

"The minimum player salary as dictated by the Collective Bargaining Agreement is $45,000 in 2013, incremented by $1,000 per year for the past four years of the current CBA. "

So, the minimum @ $45k isn't awful..... the current level of Arena Football and the lower indoor leagues in the U.S. are more "pro-am" (AFL pays around $600-1,000/week for an 18 week season, and the smaller indoor leagues usually pay $200-300/game, when they are not bouncing paychecks).

So, it can be a "full time job" and not need to have secondary work, but, as I said, you have a good 4-6 months fully offseason where you can get some side work if you want to supplement it. But, most playing are certainly not banking enough to not have something ready to go post-playing career either.

iron_city_ap:Representative of the unwashed masses: iron_city_ap: I thought that $5m had to have been a cap increase, not total. What do you guys pay to get into a game up there? $5? Those players are getting shafted from the sound of it.

The economics are totally different. Minimum salary is currently $45k the highest paid qb's are between $400-500k.

The new TV deal is about $43 million a year, for all 9 teams together. its hard to be against the players but nobody gets rich because of the CFL.

The money from the TV deal almost covers the salary cap all by itself. Figure an average ticket price of $40 and an average attendance of 27k/game means about $19m in ticket revenue. I assume teams also get parking and concession revenue. Once everybody and all the bills are paid, I can see how owners aren't bringing home much, especially compared to what we have here.

I just always assumed the CFL was a bigger business than it actually is.

I can't speak to other teams, but the parking around McMahon Stadium in Calgary is owned by the University of Calgary. I am sure the team gets a cut, but not the full value.

In the NHL lockout, I sided with the owners. In this one, I ride the fence. The players do deserve more than the owners are offering, but as several in the public eye have commented, some of these owners have lost millions keeping the league afloat from the time it nearly all ended in 1996. They deserve the opportunity to recoup some of those losses. Hopefully they find that middle ground soon.

The NFL sure does a good job stifling the other leagues, too, by marketing themselves as "real football," leading everyone to believe that everything else is phony sh*t not worth spending money on.

Sad thing is, the other leagues COULD be developmental leagues, but the NFL is not only pushing the NCAA as the way for players to come up, they're actively working against other leagues and making sure there's little opportunity for any type of developmental league. You got injured your last year of school and you weren't going to be a first-round pick before the injury? Guess you went back to having roughly a 0% chance of making the NFL.